


Penitenziagite

by tapioca_two_step



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Tension, Betrayal, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Feelings, I can't keep up with this fandom, Judge!Sans, Justice!, Not Canon Compliant, Public Humiliation, Sans is a sentry for a reason, Sort Of, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, and it's going to hurt, and then back to enemies, bad times abound, damn it Asgore, my apologies, no resets allowed, this is a one-way trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tapioca_two_step/pseuds/tapioca_two_step
Summary: A human shows up in the Underground with a hat, a gun, and one shot at making it all the way to the King of Monsters and forcing him to pay for murdering human children.She just has to make it past Sans first.Neither of them are ready for the consequences when Justice meets the Judge.





	1. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The friendly neighborhood skeleton sentry meets a human.

When the deep, swallowing silence of the forest is broken for the first time in ages, Sans listens to the sound roll from the Ruins like the rumble of an earthquake. He wonders, dimly, if King Asgore hears it, too.

If his brother had been with him, the other skeleton would have nearly exploded with excitement and anticipation and...probably spaghetti. “THE DOORS ARE OPENING AGAIN, SANS,” he would say—well, _shriek,_ more like—“AND THAT MEANS ANOTHER HUMAN HAS FALLEN! WE MUST GET READY! WE MUST PREPARE! WE…MUST…FORMULATE!”

At which point Papyrus would alternately hype himself up and panic himself out of doing anything at all, and it would be Sans’s job to take care of the situation. And while Sans has always appreciated Papyrus’s enthusiasm, he doesn’t exactly share it. So he breathes out slowly, prepares himself, and waits for the intruder to appear.

At first he can barely hear them coming. The sound of snow crunching under footsteps is a whisper in the air. If he concentrates hard enough, he can imagine that he hears the soft, fluttering beat of their heart.

When he catches his first sight of the human through the black, bare trees, the first thing he notices is that she has dust on her hands.

Sans watches her silently, taking in her age, her shape, her size. In his eyes is the look of a hunter who has finally found the animal he’s been tracking. She has light hair and dark eyes, and her face is young beneath the shadow of her hat. Her steps are hesitant, her eyes craned on the pitch darkness yawning above her. Her teeth are set so they won’t chatter. She thinks she’s being cautious. She doesn’t know it’s already far too late for that. 

Her manner has none of the scared confusion that the other humans demonstrated; rather, she looks on her guard. That, and the fact that she has already dusted someone, has Sans readying his destructive magic before he even bothers to step away from his post.

He is under orders, after all.

So he plants himself directly in her way and waits for her to notice him. No sense in wasting energy chasing her down. If Papyrus would here, it would be a different story. Perhaps he would have already run her off. Perhaps he wouldn't have even recognized her as a human. After all, it's not as if he's ever seen one. Sans will never let something as potentially dangerous as a human anywhere near his brother.

She has crossed half the distance between them before he notices the gun at her hip.

He has never seen a gun in real life, but he has watched enough of Alphys’s anime shows to recognize a ranged weapon. His hand comes up.

Even though the human hasn’t yet passed through the gate Papyrus built, she sees the motion of his arm and freezes. Their eyes lock as he crooks his finger at her, but before she can react, her soul bursts through her sweater. It illuminates the snow around her with a pale yellow glow.

“hiya,” Sans calls, conversationally. “that’s a nice color soul you’ve got there.”

The human’s bright eyes widen. His turn black.

“see ya.”

“Wait--!”

He disregards her voice—low, pleading, a little raw from the cold—and locks his magic around her. Her choked-off shriek echoes off the trees as he flings her into the air. She flounders for a moment, arms pinwheeling, and then she reaches for her gun.

The sound of a rack of bones materializing in front of Sans is punctuated by the click of the hammer being pulled back, and Sans-- _she’s taking aim, her finger’s on the trigger_ —sends a bone straight for the yellow glow pulsing the middle of her chest.

Bang.

The bullet--with alarming aim--shatters the bone lancing towards her, and Sans himself has to duck out of its way. It buries itself in the wood of his guard kiosk with a muffled crunch. He glances over his shoulder at the damage to his station, then glares up at the human and releases her.

Another shriek, as the human falls from the height to which Sans lifted her. Her body throws up a puffy cloud of snow when she lands.

Sans waits. He briefly recalls the other humans who have come through the Ruins--some fearful, some bold. One of them had even managed to tell him their name.

All of their fights had been short.

When the snow finally settles, the human is again on her feet. Her nose is bleeding, and she wipes it with the sleeve of her free hand. The other is clenched, trembling, around her gun.

“Step aside,” she says. Her voice is stronger now—no longer pleading, but firm. She has a dead aim on his skull. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble.”

“of course you’re not,” he says. His eye flashes blue again.

Her mouth twists, and something that looks like—but cannot possibly be—sorrow, fills her eyes, and then her expression hardens.

“My fight is not with you,” she hisses, and pulls the trigger once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, this story happens way before Frisk falls, but after Alphys "makes" Flowey (and obviously after Gaster disappears). My apologies if this betrays any canon that readers are familiar with. I'm not familiar with very many AUs or deep speculation about Undertale's backstory, so I guess just treat this as (yet another!) one of my character studies.
> 
> Also..."penitenziagite" means "do penance".


	2. Snowdin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is spaghetti.

_Welcome to Snowdin._

Shivering, blue-lipped, half-frozen Justice has to snort at the pun. She’d always thought that the deeper underground one got, the warmer one would be—getting nearer to the Earth’s core, and all that. In school, she’d been taught that the Underground encompassed several different biomes, but she really hadn’t been expecting to step into subzero temperatures—or expecting to ever step into the Underground at all— the second she left the autumnal warmth of the Ruins.

Her heart squeezes when she thinks of the Ruins. Toriel’s kindness, concern, and love for her had almost been enough to make her want to stay there.

Almost.

“It’s cold out there,” the goat-woman had pleaded. “And it’s dangerous—too dangerous. Please, my child. You don’t have to leave.”

 _It might be_ , Justice had agreed, _but…even so…._

Toriel had been right, of course. On both counts. Justice finds herself casting a look over her shoulder at the towering trees across the chasm. She hadn’t been followed since her initial…encounter, but she can’t help but feel watched. She had managed to avoid all the armored guard dogs prowling around the area, but it’s not like they had come after her. Not like the skeleton in the woods.

She shivers and turns her attention back to the welcome sign and the little town that lies just beyond it. It looks like a Kinkaid painting, or a life-sized version of those model Christmas villages that pop up around the holidays: picturesque little houses topped with snow and warmly lit from within. She sees one or two people—no, monsters—walking around outside, but some of them are so bundled up she can’t make out their features. In the town square—she guesses—a fir tree is decorated with lights and haloed by festively wrapped presents. She’d love to warm up in one of the houses, maybe get something hot to drink somewhere. It doesn’t look dangerous, but, again, neither did the monster in the woods. He was wearing fuzzy slippers, for God’s sake.

 _Maybe I can go around_ , she thinks, glancing at the snow-frosted trees surrounding them. _Maybe I can wait for nighttime. I don’t even know what time it is. Do they even bother to keep track of stuff like that down here? What if I walked straight through without talking to anyone? Maybe I can run. Maybe nobody will try to stop me._ Reflexively she shifts, feeling the weight of her gun on her hip. _Please don’t let anyone stop me—_

“EXCUSE ME.”

She almost—almost—pees herself. She spins around so fast that she loses her balance and falls on her back, and finds herself gaping up at—at—

A skeleton…in cosplay?

Gloved hands on his hipbones, red boots planted in a wide stance, the monster leans over her, using every inch of his towering height to his advantage. Whereas the monster in the woods was short and sturdy, it looks like this one was stretched out and then dressed in some kind of papier-mâché armor. 

“I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, FUTURE MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD,” he says, and she realizes that he wasn’t trying to startle her, that’s his speaking voice, _holy cow it’s loud_.

“MAY I ASK WHAT KIND OF MONSTER YOU ARE?”

She blinks, then remembers her mouth is hanging open and snaps it shut. She hadn’t considered the possibility that monsters might not even recognize somebody like her. Toriel and the first skeleton she met certainly seemed to know exactly what she was.

“W…what kind of monster do I look like?” she asks hesitantly, after clearing her throat.

Without missing a beat—and without calling attention to it—the monster reaches down and hauls her back to her feet and begins brushing snow off the back of her sweater. “I'M NOT SURE. YOU MAY ALSO BE A CERTAIN SPECIES OF SEA ALGAE OR FOREST MUSHROOM, BUT I AM HAVING TROUBLE PINPOINTING YOUR ACCENT.” He muses for a moment. “COULD YOU BE VISITING FROM THE CAPITAL CITY? I HEARD IT WAS GETTING VERY CROWDED THERE.”

 _The Capital City_. She inhales. _Don’t say yes, ask him how to get there, just make something up for now—_

“I’m just passing through,” she says quickly, taking off her hat and making a show of brushing the snow off of it. “This place—Snowdin—is very pretty, and I’m sorry I can’t stay for very long, but I was actually looking for someone to give me some directions.”

The monster puts his gloved hand on his chest and strikes a ridiculous pose. “WELL, ALLOW THE GREAT PAPYRUS TO BE OF SERVICE. WHERE ARE YOU NEEDING TO DIRECTON TOWARDS?”

Then, before she can ask her question, her stomach picks this time to audibly growl. She slaps a hand to her midsection, her brow furrowing as a pang of hunger shoots through her.

"Excuse me," she says with a sheepish smile. "Maybe you can point me towards a restaurant first?"

The skeleton hears it, and his bravado immediately evaporates. “HOW RUDE OF ME TO NOT NOTICE,” he seems to announce to the entire Underground, “THAT YOU ARE STARVING TO DEATH RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE SIGNS MUCH SOONER, WHAT WITH YOUR WEIRD SKIN COLOR AND...WHATEVER’S GOING ON WITH YOUR FACE!”

As she is figuring out what to make of his words-- _he can’t be insulting me, surely?—_ the skeleton strides forwards and seizes her upper arm with a gloved hand. “I FORMALLY FORCE YOU TO COME TO MY HOUSE FOR DINNER. PLEASE,” he adds.

She looks at his hand gripping her arm and then up at his face. He seems sincere and guileless. He’s definitely different than the other one. And it’s been so long since she’s eaten anything. And…she can ask her question when she’s warmer. When she’s slept.

When she’s ready to use her gun again.

“...All right.”

The words are barely out of her mouth before she is dragged down the hill through the middle of the town. She almost has to run to keep up with his pace, and if she was hoping to avoid attention, that plan was dead in the water. The heads of every monster outside turn towards them as the skeleton—Papyrus—bellows, “PLEASE MAKE WAY, AS I AM IN THE PROCESS OF SAVING SOMEONE’S LIFE.”

All Justice can do is pull down the brim of her hat so low that it’s level with her nose, and blindly follow the skeleton until he stops in front of a house on the outskirts of town. Its roof is iced with snow and decorated with cheerfully colored Christmas lights. Papyrus puffs his armored chest out. “ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU TO MY HOME,” he says, gesturing to it with a wide sweep of his skeletal arm. “I AM RATHER FOND OF IT.”

“It does look cozy,” Justice admits. Looking at the house makes her snow-soaked clothes that much more uncomfortable.

“YES,” Papyrus says, “BUT IT’S MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE INSIDE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?”

“Of course.” She finds herself smiling.

They go inside, and he immediately steers her towards a table, where he shoves her into a chair. “SIT,” he commands, unnecessarily, “AND ALLOW THE GREAT PAPYRUS TO ASTOUND YOU WITH HIS CULINARY EXPERTISE!”

So saying, he disappears into the kitchen. Pots and pans immediately begin banging around.

Justice listens for a moment, and then glances around at the couch, the TV, the picture of flowers hanging on the wall. It’s a normal home, exactly like a house on the surface. She can almost pretend she’s still on the surface. The ball of tension inside of her eases a little.

“Do you live here alone?” she calls.

Papyrus appears in the kitchen doorway, one arm wrapped around a bowl and the other mixing whatever is inside it at a ridiculous speed. “I DO, WHENEVER MY BROTHER ISN’T HERE--WHICH ISN’T A LOT SINCE HE’S SO LAZY! I CAN BARELY GET HIM TO WAKE UP IN THE MORNINGS. HE HASN’T TAKEN HIS PET ROCK FOR A WALK IN AGES. HE’S TOTALLY UNMOTIVATED.”

Justice’s racing mind relaxes. _Lazy, unmotivated, and probably tall? It’s okay, it’s fine—he’s definitely not describing the monster from the woods._

“You must have _some_ nice things to say about him,” she says, to cover her nervous energy.

“OH, YES! JUST DON’T ASK HIM TO TELL YOU ANY JOKES…OR SOLVE ANY WORD-SCRAMBLERS.”

There is a sudden crashing noise, and a plate rolls from the kitchen and ends up underneath the table. She peers down at it. The design on its edge is of holly bunches and mistletoe. “Do you all celebrate Christmas in August?” she asks without thinking.

“CELEBRATE WHAT IN WHAT?”

She flinches. “The presents,” she begins hesitantly, “and the colored lights, and the tree outside?” _Way to out yourself, there. Might as well say, “I just got here from the surface, mind telling me about your customs before trying to kill me?”_

“WE ALWAYS DO STUFF LIKE THAT AROUND HERE. IT’S TRADITION!”

“That’s…very sweet.” Justice shifts in the chair. _The one from the woods definitely doesn’t live here_ , she decides. _These monsters are good. These monsters are kind._

“TA-DAAA!” Justice’s eardrums nearly blow out as Papyrus slams a plate down in front of her. She’s surprised it doesn’t break due to the force or the ridiculous amount of pasta piled on top of it that’s giving off clouds of fragrant steam. She takes an experimental sniff.

 _Tomato. Onion. Garlic_. Her nose wrinkles. _V...vanilla?_

“HELP YOURSELF!” Papyrus holds out of fork, and she finds herself reaching out to take it before she can think of a believable reason to excuse herself. She spears the edge of the pasta lump and begins spinning her fork. _Here goes nothing._

“Do you, ah, enjoy cooking?” she asks.

“OH YES! I EVEN ATTEND A VERY PRESTIGIOUS COOKING CLASS TAUGHT BY NONE OTHER THAN THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD. SHE SAYS I EXCEL AT FINDING COMPLIMENTARY FLAVORS.” He pauses. “OR WAS IT CONTRADICTORY FLAVORS? I SHALL HAVE TO ASK HER NEXT TIME.”

Justice braces herself and takes a bite.

_Oh, God, it’s crunchy._

He must have only thrown the pasta in the water only long enough to barely soften it. Between one chew and the next, the inexplicable taste of bittersweet chocolate coats her tongue. She nearly spits it out, but when she looks up at Papyrus with watering eyes, the hopeful expression on his face fills her with guilt.

“I HAD TO PUT AS MANY CALORIES AS POSSIBLE INTO IT,” he explains, “ON ACCOUNT OF YOUR STARVATION.”

Her throat rebelling, she swallows it. “Thank you,” she forces out, before she can gag. “You’re...very kind.”

She manages to hide her amazement when the skeleton’s high cheekbones flush a very faint shade of orange. _He’s blushing._ “W-WELL, THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS MORE THAN KIND,” he says, his voice even louder than before. “AS A FUTURE MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD, I HAVE A WIDE REPERTOIRE OF THINGS I NEED TO BE GOOD AT. THINGS SUCH AS PASTA-MAKING, AND GUEST-HOSTING, AND STARVATION-PREVENTING, AND--”

He’s interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

“AH!” he says, as Justice brings another reluctant forkful to her mouth. “THAT WILL BE MY NOT-AS-GOOD-A-HOST-AS-ME-BROTHER. BUT EVEN THOUGH HE’S NOT AS GOOD A HOST AS ME, I THINK YOU WILL LIKE HIM. HIS NAME IS--”

A figure slumps through the doorway.

Papyrus straightens in alarm. Justice, her mouth full, nearly bites the tines off the fork.

“--SANS?”

_The one from the woods--!_

Same blue jacket. Same fuzzy pink slippers. Same smiling skull. Well, no, not the same. The crack in the bone that her bullet made runs from his temple to his eye and partially down his cheek. His eye--the left one, the same one that flashed when he attacked her--intermittently crackles and sparks blue light like an arcing power line. His smile is stiff and mirthless.

She had aimed her shot to only inflict superficial damage, and secretly, she is glad she hadn’t killed him.

But seeing him standing in the doorway with his frozen expression and his black sockets fixed on her makes her think that maybe she should have.


End file.
